Current Events > Is that guy that ran a laser tag business still around?

(+) Yeah! (+)

If so I'm curious what sort of laser guns you chose and how much you spent setting up your laser tag room.

@Zanzenburger is who you're thinking of.

Hey! Yeah, thats me.

I used the Battle Company brand of laser tag equipment. The guns cost us about $12k (financed) to get a set of 16. We had both a mobile and indoor arena setup.

The mobile was cheaper as we just bought inflatable bunkers at $150 a piece which we could set up and tear down. The fixed arena used a combination of wood, chloroplast, and paint to create intricate wall designs. That ran us about $15k, but only because we hired an artist to paint some neat designs. We could have done it for much cheaper if we just painted it ourselves.

There are commercial laser tag arenas out there you can buy and that they can install for you, but they are much more costly and not worth it imo. They'll just look like any other generic laser tag place. Ours at least was unique, which was part of the attraction to our community.

Do you think a mobile / rental only operation would be feasible? I have access to retail space at near $0 but its only about 800 square feet, so not enough for actual laser tag. Like are the commercial grade guns easy enough to use anyone can figure it out or do you need to be trained as a game master to get them working right?

how seasonal was yours? Were rentals more of a summer thing or were they year round?

Theres a really cool laser than place where I grew up. It had two floors IIRC butI havent been there in years. I wonder how much it would cost to host a game

https://www.amazon.com/Squad-Hero-Rechargeable-Laser-Innovative/dp/B082XJRTMG/

how much worse is a set like this compared to professional or commercial grade stuff? Ive got a bunch of nieces and nephews 5-10 years old, would this work for them?

I remember the kid grade stuff from the 80s/90s and it straight up sucked, but it seems like it has to have gotten a lot better.

Norman_Smiley posted...

Do you think a mobile / rental only operation would be feasible? I have access to retail space at near $0 but its only about 800 square feet, so not enough for actual laser tag. Like are the commercial grade guns easy enough to use anyone can figure it out or do you need to be trained as a game master to get them working right?

how seasonal was yours? Were rentals more of a summer thing or were they year round?

We did year-round, but stuck to more indoor parties in the winter. So churches and schools and stuff. We did do the occasional outdoor party in the dead of winter, depending how cold we were willing to get. The kids didn't care. They ran around and kept themselves warm.

For mobile, you need to buy tactical gear, not the infrared ones. Those only work indoors in the dark. They are relatively easy to operate as long as you are comfortable running through the menus and setting up the game software. If you play video games it shouldn't be a problem.

The real challenge is maintenance. Used commercially, guns break down all the time. Unless you teach yourself to make minor repairs, you'll be sending your guns for repair a lot for minor things, like the trigger breaking or the sound speaker going out. With a little patience, you can learn to fix these yourself and save yourself money and time. Always have more guns than you need so you have backups when things break down.

The_Critic posted...

https://www.amazon.com/Squad-Hero-Rechargeable-Laser-Innovative/dp/B082XJRTMG/

how much worse is a set like this compared to professional or commercial grade stuff? Ive got a bunch of nieces and nephews 5-10 years old, would this work for them?

I remember the kid grade stuff from the 80s/90s and it straight up sucked, but it seems like it has to have gotten a lot better.

Modern ones are great for kids. Just not as durable so wouldn't be good for commercial use.

@Zanzenburger do you have any pics.